LED there be light: Civic body allocates Rs 10 crore

To reduce crime on dark stretches, the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) has decided to shell out R10 crore for fixing GPRS-controlled LED streetlights on roads.

The city police had identified some stretches notorious for criminal activities. The high capacity illuminating lights, to be installed in the next couple of months, are expected to minimise crime.

These lights will consume half the amount of power than the conventional ones and can be operated automatically after sunrise and sunset. Even the MCG officials would be able to operate them from their laptops and know the status of defective lights. The MCG decision followed after a 21-day campaign by Hindustan Times highlighting the lack of safety measures in Gurgaon.

HT had carried a detailed report on the city’s dark stretches on its issue dated May 31.

“We are in touch with some private LED light suppliers and have sought presentations from them in a day or two. We need more than 10,000 LED lights to illuminate roads falling in our limit,” said MCG chief engineer BS Singroha, adding that about 1,700 such lights had been installed on an experiment basis on Old Gurgaon roads.

HT along with the Gurgaon police raised the issue of unsafe stretches with the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda), MCG and Public Works Department (PWD).

Gurgaon commissioner of police Alok Mittal wrote to the MCG commissioner, Huda and senior officials of the PWD to improve the lights on city roads. HT reported that 50 per cent streetlights are non-functional.

“We have decided to switch over to LED lights, which are costly but low maintenance. The LED lights will be server based and I can turn them off and on from my office,” added Singroha.Streetlights will be first put up on three major roads, Kapashera border to main bus stand (8km stretch), Iffco Chowk to main bus stand (3.5km) and Signature Tower to Atul Kataria Chowk (1.5km).